Loyal to the Family
by Eady of Old
Summary: Bates goes to see Lady Mary. S5 SPOILERS and speculation.


**Summary**: Bates goes to see Lady Mary. S5 SPOILERS and speculation.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Downton Abbey or these characters. Obviously. Or I would be publishing novels about them and not writing fanfic.

**A/N: This is a short, speculative piece I wrote after the scenario came up in a discussion of what will happen going forward in S5. So, consider this a spoiler warning for everything in S5 so far and what might happen in future episodes. As always, reviews are appreciated.**

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><p>Bates knocked on the door softly, keenly aware of the immense impropriety of what he was about to do.<p>

He heard an indistinctly feminine voice call out that he should enter. Bates paused, frozen in the hall. He was not the person she was expecting, and he knew that entering that door could cause any number of problems for them both. But he had to see her.

Knocking again, Bates waited. The woman called out again, but he did not answer. Finally, the door pulled inward and Lady Mary appeared.

"Bates!" she said in surprise. "I was expecting Anna."

"I know you were, milady. That's why I'm here. I must speak with you."

Her eyes widened at his urgent tone. Perhaps noticing his anxious expression, she turned to look inside her empty room, indecisive. A male servant found in her bedroom would be scandalous. But he could tell that her own concern for her lady's maid and desire to understand Anna's absence weighed heavily. Glancing both ways down the corridor, Mary gestured for him to accompany her inside.

He hesitated only a moment before following her, glad that she was at least still wearing her clothes from the afternoon in the village. Obviously, the lady had been waiting for Anna to come and assist her in changing for dinner. Bates closed the door behind him but remained next to it, unwilling to take too many steps into Mary's bedroom.

"What is it?" she demanded, her usually stoic countenance crumbling with worry. "What's happened to Anna?"

"She was arrested. They're taking her to York." His voice shook with iron restraint as he willed himself not to react.

"_Arrested_?"

Mary's hand went to her chest as she sat heavily on the settee at the foot of her bed. The blood drained from her face as her normally pale complexion turned a sickening white.

"For the murder of Mister Green."

Her eyes went wide. "That's impossible," she declared.

His own blood was racing through his veins, leaving his hands feeling shaky and his legs weak as his heartbeat thundered behind his ears. "They've taken her," he said again. "They came while we were in the village at the memorial."

He still wore the ribbons on his jacket, he realized, not having bothered to take them off before heading to the house.

"Why on Earth would they think Anna killed Green?" Mary asked, looking completely dumbfounded.

"Because she was in London with you the day he died," Bates stated. "Because he told others that he'd quarreled with me last time he was at Downton. She went to Lord Gillingham's building last time she was with you in London and they followed her from there to Piccadilly."

He watched her as he listed off each piece of evidence the investigator had told him when he arrived back from the village. Officers had already taken Anna away and the man had almost needed to restrain him as he informed Bates of the charges.

Watching his employer's daughter, he added, "And because they searched the cottage and found something that led them to believe she was having an affair with Mister Green."

She stood up at his last statement, taking several steps towards him. "They think she was having an _affair_?' she repeated, absolutely shocked. "Why would they-"

And thus came the crux of his reason for visiting this particular woman first. What he had to say next could very well lead to both his dismissal and Anna's, if the police ever let her go.

"They found something in one of her baskets. It was... a device. With it was a book detailing how it could be used to avoid..." The words came out clipped and painful, "to avoid becoming with child."

He need not have studied her reaction too closely because she could not have censored it even if she'd tried. Time stopped as she understood - very clearly understood - what he had just described. She said nothing for several moments but just stared at her lady's maid's husband.

Finally, Bates said in all but a whisper, "They think she has it because she was having an affair."

"But... but Anna is a married woman," she pointed out. "There is nothing wrong with a husband and wife choosing not to have children-"

"But they asked her. They asked me. They asked us both, and we both said we do want children, that we'd been hopeful in that regard for some time."

Mary began to nod in understanding. "But they found..."

"Yes."

She looked away, clearly mortified by the direction the conversation had taken.

"The thing is... we both know Anna has not been unfaithful to me. And I think we both know why she had those things at the cottage."

Swallowing dryly, Mary acknowledged, "I asked her to hold them for me. They're mine."

He nodded.

"I know, milady. She didn't tell me, but I knew she was hiding something for you and I assumed as much when the police found them."

"Did you tell them?" she demanded, her tone betraying more than a hint of panic.

He shook his head. "I haven't yet. I also haven't told them why she couldn't possibly have been having an affair with Green."

The woman locked eyes with him, her gaze rapidly searching his as she took in his candor. She stated simply, "Because he's the one who... attacked her. The last night of the house party, when everyone else was upstairs listening to the concert. You knew."

His breath almost halted as he turned away with a grimace. "Of course I knew."

"And you killed him."

The statement was unexpected, as was the accusation in Mary's voice. Looking back at her, he saw anger flash across her face. Anger at him.

Confused, he asked, "You think I killed Green?"

"Well, didn't you?" she shot back. "You certainly had motive. Mrs. Hughes found a ticket from York to London in the pocket of your coat. She gave it to me and I burned it, but I know what I saw."

His breath caught in his throat at this revelation. "Does Anna know?" he asked.

Mary shook her head. "Neither of us could bring ourselves to tell her. But she worried you would kill him. It was all she could think about, before Green died, what you would do if you found out the truth. She thought you'd go to the gallows. In hindsight, I think that's why she moved back into the house, to keep her distance from you and keep you from finding out about it."

Anguish exploded through him at the thought of Anna so tortured by her fears. He knew that Anna's feelings after the attack were complicated and sometimes mystifying for him to comprehend, but this information added a new layer to his wife's torment.

_"I know him. I know what he'd do. And I can't risk his future," _her statement to Mrs. Hughes, nearly in tears, carried back to him.

"So she thinks I did it?" he asked, barely able to keep in mind the fact that he was talking to Lady Mary. His eyes closed involuntarily against the pain, the torment he could imagine Anna underwent for so long. She thought her husband was a killer - or at least suspected him - and she concerned herself only with his well safety. His well being - never her own.

"I don't know what Anna thinks," Mary said, her voice flat and devoid of sympathy for him. "I'm not even sure she cares, honestly. She loves you more than life itself and she'd do anything to keep them from taking you."

Bates froze.

More than life itself.

"Do you think she'd confess, to protect me?" he asked suddenly, the horror of his imagination taking hold.

As soon as he posed the question, the same shock overtook Mary and her face went white. "She might," the lady whispered. "I doubt she'd tell them that what they found at the cottage belonged to me. And she'd never tell them about what Green did. It would only give you more of a motive to kill him in their eyes."

His head was swimming as he considered the implications of what she was saying. Anna would protect him, he knew. She had almost been willing to throw away their marriage after her attack to spare his suffering.

"They've taken her to York," he said. "I have to go... I have to talk to the police, make sure she doesn't confess."

Mary nodded. "I'll call Murray. There must be something he can do." She paused, looking at him intently. "What will you tell the police?" she asked.

Bates frowned as he tried to breath in while his chest seized painfully. "I'll tell them whatever I have to for Anna's sake. I'll tell them I killed Green, that Anna is simply trying to spare me."

She showed surprise at his willingness. "They'll execute you," the lady observed bluntly. "Anna was right - they won't spare you that fate, not again."

Blinking back a rush of tears, he stared at her. Her statement was not callous but rather practical, a fact to be taken into consideration. But to Bates, only one fact mattered. Anna needed him. She needed him and he would not fail her again.

He could not allow his wife to take the blame for Green's death, not in an effort to shield him. His own fate no longer mattered. Bates could not permit her suffering, not for one moment more, and certainly not for his benefit. Anna had already been through so much; he would not see her in a jail cell, not while there was still breath in his body.

"Better me than her," he said aloud. "Perhaps if I'd spoken up back then about going to London, none of this would have happened."

Mary's eyebrows shot up. His casual confession to what she already knew still seemed to surprise her somehow, as if she'd been waiting for an explanation that would take him outside the role of murderer once again.

"You admit that you were in London?"

"I was, milady. I went there to confront Green. But I didn't have the chance." He had her attention, rapt and unbreakable as he went on, "I saw him in Piccadilly. He was arguing with another man. One moment they were pushing each other, angrily, and the next, he fell into the road - Mister Green. I left when I realized what happened, returned to Downton via York."

"Did you see who pushed him?" Mary asked.

"I did."

"Who was it?"

Bates took a deep breath before answering. "It was Lord Gillingham, milady. I never said before because I knew what it would do to you, to your family. I wasn't sure if you asked him to do it, for Anna's sake. And I was glad Green was dead."

Her mouth dropped open slightly in surprise which was betrayed equally by her wide, alarmed expression. Quickly, she defended, "I only asked him to sack Green, not to kill him. Are you sure it was Lord Gillingham?"

With a sardonic half smile, Bates stated, "Quite sure, milady. And if he did not do it for you, there is perhaps another motive. Valets know a great deal about their employers and the families they serve. Perhaps Gillingham had his own reason to hate the man."

"Then we should go to the police. I've refused his proposal and there is no reason to protect him, Bates."

He looked away before stating blandly, "I can't, not now. If I try to tell this to the police, they'll call me a liar and Anna will still go to prison. I have no evidence. The only way to save my wife is to confess. And that is what I plan to do."

His hand was on the handle to her bedroom door, ready to leave as she asked quietly, "Will you tell them that it was mine, what they found at the cottage?"

Bates' gaze crossed the room to stab into her, his expression a mixture of anger, grief, and disillusion. "As you said before, milady, there is no reason why a married couple desiring to remain childless should not have such a device. And they should have no trouble believing that Anna would not want a child with me."

With that, he left her, taking care as he exited to make sure the passageway was clear and he would not be spotted leaving the lady's room. Mary remained rooted in place long after he'd gone, her emotions a brewing storm around her. Shame flooded her senses as she digested the knowledge that Bates had never killed Green. Rather, he'd witnessed a murder and kept it to himself to protect her - to protect the entire Crawley family. And all the while she had thought him a calculated, cold-blooded killer out for revenge on the man who'd harmed his wife.

She took a few moments to formulate a plan before taking action. She did not bother to change, the afternoon outfit she'd worn to the dedication ceremony being remarkably suited to a sudden trip to York. She descended the staircase without hurry, careful to keep up the appearance that nothing was amiss.

"Mister Barrow," she addressed the underbutler, the first servant she spotted. "Please have the car brought around immediately. I need to go to York."

"Very good, my lady," he responded, but a half-step later, he paused. "Is this about Mrs. Bates?" he asked. "We've all heard downstairs that the police..."

"I don't know what you've heard," she responded imperiously, "and I won't give substance to gossip."

Barrow cocked his head, his sickly complexion giving the movement a corpse-like quality. "Of course, milady."

She did the math even as she stepped into the library to inform her father of her sudden trip. Even if Bates made the next train, she could still beat him to the police station. With the news of Anna's arrest already making the rounds downstairs, she had no choice but to acknowledge the story in order to stay ahead of it. Lord Grantham expressed shock and outrage, just as she expected from someone who knew nothing of the background with Green. His own attachment to Bates was clear, so she took care to try and leave the valet out of matters as much as she could.

"I'm taking care of it," she said in conclusion, "although Bates is already on his way. Call Murray, for what good it will do, but I have to go. I expect to be home late."

The Earl watched her as she moved to leave, calling out just before she got to the door. "What is this really about?" he asked. "I can tell that you know more than you're letting on."

She smiled at him. "It's about loyalty to the family, Papa," she said.

_fin_


End file.
